GOP's Mourdock blames 'liberal media' for Senate loss

Richard Mourdock was the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate in Indiana.(Photo: Michael Conroy, AP)

Richard Mourdock's campaign is blaming the "liberal media" for the Republican's defeat in the Indiana Senate race, as it tries to erase campaign debt in a new fundraising pitch.

Mourdock, the state treasurer, is the candidate who made controversial comments about rape and abortion during a debate against Democratic Rep. Joe Donnelly. Mourdock said "when life begins in that horrible situation of rape that it is something that God intended to happen."

In an e-mail sent to fellow Hoosiers, Mourdock campaign finance director Ashlee Walls said after Mourdock made those comments, "we found our campaign caught in the liberal media cross hairs."

"Never has Indiana seen a more obvious example of media bias by reporters more interested in defeating conservatives than reporting the news," Walls wrote. "We fought back and invested heavily in a last-minute push to combat the slew of false accusations Democrats and the liberal media churned up to distract voters."

Donnelly went on to defeat Mourdock by more than 5 percentage points -- in a state where Mitt Romney easily beat President Obama.

The fundraising e-mail directs Mourdock supporters to a donation page, where the suggested donation begins at $35. It's not clear how much debt Mourdock needs to erase. He raised $7.9 million for the Senate race, compared with about $4.7 million for Donnelly.